Stay away from Soccer fandom. Thoughts on 2nd half of Newcastle v Arsenal

A memorable fancy. Thomas Hobbes and I watched the Newcastle v Arsenal match today. Our thoughts:
Players I'd rather not see in an Arsenal shirt any more:
Diaby
Denilson
Djourou (didn't play today, but that's for last week)

Horrible, horrible games:
Gallas
Toure

Well, there's your core--your center. Balls.

Oh, but of course, Diaby just scored for 2-1 Arsenal. Of course. He still sucks, though. Poor first touch, donkey-like build up play. Often seems suprised to be receiving the ball. Nothing defensively. But that was a quality goal.

Nasri! 3-1 to the Arse. I do dig this dude. And I feel bad for the Newcastle faithful. The missed penalty (albeit a crap call). The pointless giving away of two goals after an unlikely equalizer. Mike Ashley. A nightmare season. The team is just not that bad. They're not as good as Tottenham, but their talent is not relegation-worthy.
Clichy finally getting in on the action makes a nice run hitting Van Persie who forces a fine Harper save.

Digging Arshavin. And Bendtner's looked good today. They definitely need a bigg'un up front and Bendtner's been filling that role well in the absence of Adebayor.

Sagna is a freaky dude. Fast. Spirited. A bit wacky sometimes. Decent crosser. Pretty solid defensively. A key factor in Arsenal's "rent boys across the world" approach to building a team.

Song. Hmm, the best of a bad lot of holding-esque midfielders? Seems to have some fight in him.

Almunia is a cult figure for me. Has gotten pretty dang solid this season.

Arsenal is SO indifferent in defensive midfield. No pressure. No 50-50 balls won. Very few headers won. That's striking in the Premier League. But, hey, looks like they're pretty solidly back in 4th place and the Champion's League. Hooray.

FYI--From the Desk of Thomas Hobbes

"So when a man compoundeth the image of his own person with the image of the actions of another man, as when a man imagines himself a Hercules or an Alexander (which happeneth often to them that are much taken with reading of romances), it is a compound imagination, and properly but a fiction of the mind. There be also other imaginations that rise in men, though waking, from the great impression made in sense: as from gazing upon the sun, the impression leaves an image of the sun before our eyes a long time after; and from being long and vehemently attent upon geometrical figures, a man shall in the dark, though awake, have the images of lines and angles before his eyes; which kind of fancy hath no particular name, as being a thing that doth not commonly fall into men's discourse."

Thomas Hobbes, I thanketh ye for providing this apt physik of the motions of the mind of man at rest or at work for as we may find ourselves in practice of diverse actions both as individual agents as set in motion by the Artificer or as members of a great COMMONWEALTH or STATE, we have need of understanding the nature and cause of our imaginings and the general use of speech to transfer our mental discourse into verbal, and the train of our thoughts into a train of words as may be found in the DICTIONARY OF MAN.

The engraved figure of Mr. Hobbes which you have found begotten on your organs of sense is borrowed liberally from the electronic library of images to be found under the appellation, "Sexy People," whose "webbe site" may be accessed by moving one's electronic designating device to the anomalously coloured text in this sentence and depressing the button of said device by action of the forefinger.